Another Update

There’s not much to report as of yet as far as selling my last stories go. Desperate Upload is still at IGMS at 24 days. My 2nd Quarter entry to Writers of the Future is also still with them as the second quarter isn’t even over for another month yet.

Last week, however, Desperate Upload was up for critique at Critters workshop. I’m not going to edit it based on the responses I got, but instead I’m following the advice of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch and taking the critiques I agree with to help me improve my next story. Specifically I need to improve my beginnings and endings, making my villains more three-dimensional, to watch that I don’t put in details that have no impact on the story, and watching for adverbs and passive voice. I think many of these are already improved in my Second Quarter entry to WOTF, but I’m going to keep working on them as well.

As for my next story, it’s coming a lot slower than I expected. With this story, I’m aiming for a low word count, maybe even flash fiction. I’ve never written anything this short before, and I’m hitting the ‘this is crap’ phase a lot sooner than with most of my projects. I am going to finish this story, though, and unless my first reader tells me it’s crap, I’ll start submitting it too. I fully believe that I’m in no way experienced enough yet to judge the quality of my own work, and I won’t let my doubts stop me.